Columbus: smoke from a distant fire

Columbus and area residents awoke Thursday morning to a heavy pall of smoke from the wildfires in the southeast part of the state.

About a half-million acres are ablaze or smoldering in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, and nearby areas.

Similar conditions were experienced throughout the area on Wednesday, as well; city and county officials met to discuss possible responses, including scaling back public sports events.

Columbus health officials suggests curtailing outside activities, and staying inside with the windows closed.

The Muscogee County Sheriff's Office recommends motorists turn on their headlights, and use the same caution in the reduced visibility as they would in fog.

Wildlife wait out the wildfires

The fires in Southeast Georgia are affecting wildlife as well as people. The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is home to more than 400 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish.

It's hard to gauge the long-term impact these fires are having on the animals, but U-S Fish and Wildlife Ranger Sally Gentry says she’s optimistic.

"These fires are part of a natural cycle of the Okenfenokee Swamp so most of the animals that inhabit this area are conditioned over generations to have adaptations to deal with this," says Gentry.

She says mammals, especially black bears, are the hardest hit. They've roamed into neighboring timber forests.

The fires and drought, she says, are forcing alligators, fish and turtles to share closer living space.

But well before the fires started, rangers had cleared the brush around the trees where the endangered red cockaded woodpecker makes its home.

Other animals, like the gopher tortoise, have dug burrows, where they're waiting out the fires.

Fires cause mandatory evacuation for small community

Fire officials have issued a mandatory evacuation for Moniac Georgia, a small community right on the Florida Border as continuing wildfires threaten homes there.
Officials in Florida and Georgia have been evacuating people in the line of a fire that was started by lighting this weekend in the Okefenokee National Wildlife refuge in South East Georgia. It has spread to over 40 thousand acres and has not been contained at all by firefighters. Now the blaze know as the Bugga Boo Scrub fire is threatening the small community of Moniac. This fire is only separated by a few miles from other wildfires that have already burned more than 100 thousand acres over the past few weeks. Firefighters have that blaze 45 percent under control. A mandatory evacuation of the homes Moniac means that there's a chance the fire could through there as early as midnight.